Eminem: The Real Slim Shady

More than a decade after Eminem "The Monster" (aka Marshall Mathers, aka Slim Shady) disrupted mainstream hip-hop culture, he is even more hated, contested, and celebrated. His albums, autobiographies, and motion picture catapulted him into the upper echelon of American cultural icons. In Eminem: The Real Slim Shady, Dr. Marcia Alesan Dawkins, award-winning author of Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity, offers a fresh way of looking at Eminem that will excite those who already love the artist and inform those who want to understand him.

RAVE REVIEWS

“Eminem is a remarkable character study of one of the most notorious public figures of our time. It is well-researched, beautifully written, and thoroughly engaging. Dawkins's musical knowledge is encyclopedic and the portrait she paints of Eminem—as performer, father, son, spiritual force, cultural critic, and polyethnic American—is as compelling as it is multifaceted. Unafraid to address head on the key issues that make Eminem such a lightning rod for controversy, Dawkins launches her critique from the boldest place possible.”

“Combine the beautifully paced rhythm and flow of meticulous research with family dysfunction and divine intervention. Stir in “digital reparations” and remixed racial politics. The result? Dawkins’s secret recipe. Her engrossing new book about the seismic social change inside the music of Eminem is an absolute page turner. Forget Oprah’s 2013 book club, Eminem: The Real Slim Shady has been my favorite summer read!”

"Dawkins disrupts the status quo by dissecting an equally disruptive figure in hip hop. Fusing darkness with light, she chronicles Eminem as "the monster," taking on the breakdown of American familial, sexual, gendered and religious traditions alongside his breakthroughs in arts, technology and the business of innovation. Intense and compelling."

"Eminem sorts listeners into those who are and are not cognoscenti. Dawkins’s sparklingly new work suggests that coveting a deeper acquaintance with Eminem may well lead to better comprehension of the age. Her nuanced scholarship shatters stereotypes with detail. Her skill exposes his several voices, discreetly and contextually. Hauntingly, she excavates his expression of the misery of the forgotten; of desperate, if ill-conceived, cries for justice; of anguish and its distorting excesses. History alone will confirm or refute Dawkins’s compelling identification of Eminem as an important prophet of our age. My head is turned to look again. More carefully."

The Reverend Janet M. Cooper Nelson,
Chaplain of the University at Brown University

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FAVORITE SHADY MOMENTS

Some of these Em fans will have something to talk about soon.. Thank god cause y'all be killing my timeline.